Lights Will Guide You Home
by Anorak Myth
Summary: I know I'm dead, but I'm not leaving. 3B SPOILERS
1. Awakening

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf and I am making no profit from this writing.

Warnings: MAJOR SPOILERS for Season 3B finale, major character death (canonical), some non-graphic violence possible, work in progress, un-betaed

HUGE thank you to Madame Vastras, the GENIUS who came up with this idea and awesomely allowed me to use it. This fic was inspired by her beautiful gif set, which you can find at: madamevastrasDOTtumblrDOTcom/ post/81014139304/teen-wolf-au-nobody-really-dies-in-beacon-hills (or go to my profile for the link)

Title from Coldplay's "Fix You." Don't ask, I have no idea.

* * *

Chapter 1: The Awakening

"No, Allison."

"Allison."

"No."

"Allison!"

She can hear Lydia screaming as she floats higher and higher. As she rises above her body, watches the connection sever where the sword struck her. She wasn't lying when she told Scott it didn't hurt. She can't feel anything. She reaches for her body, tries to stay just a little longer, wishing she could feel his arms wrapped around her, holding her safe, protecting her (too late, too late). She drifts, watches him get farther away. Makes another grab for him, just before he slips out of her reach. She tries to rest her hand on his shoulder, only manages to brush her fingers through him for an instant. She hopes he felt it.

Then everything goes dark.

* * *

She wakes in the woods, in a bed of rotting leaves. She rises, staggers to her feet – no, she expects to stagger, but her feet are sure beneath her. Her shoe goes through the pile of leaves, and they lay undisturbed. As if no one had ever been there at all.

She walks around the stump in front of her, realizes she recognizes it. The Nemeton. Where she first met Scott. Where they made their sacrifices. Where everything began.

This is not what she imagined Heaven to be like. Nor Hell, for that matter. Maybe she is in Purgatory. Maybe this is where souls go while they are waiting to cross the River Styx.

She hears a noise behind her, leaves rustling.

"Mom?" she whispers, scarcely daring to hope. A branch snaps – and no, she was soundless when she moved, if her mother was here, she would be too, wouldn't she? She whirls, automatically reaching for her crossbow, and realizing she doesn't have it.

It's a deer, watching her calmly. She breathes a sigh of relief. The deer looks up, then, freezes. And she runs, her white tail held high in the air like a warning flare. Allison hears movement all around her, and then suddenly, nothing.

The air is still. The birds are silent. The woods are empty, quiet like death. For the first time since she left her body behind, she thinks she almost feels something – a chill down her spine. Something is coming.

She takes to the trees, climbing as fast as she can, hand over foot over hand – but she can't seem to get a grip. Her fingers go right through the tree branch when she tries to grab it. She takes a deep breath. Pushes her palm into the trunk of the tree. Closes her eyes, and passes through. Inside the tree, it is quiet. Safe.

Even within the tree, she can hear the creature roar. If she still had a body, her hands would be shaking, she is sure of it. She's grown steadier since Aunt Kate's death, but this is a whole different creature. There is something monstrous about it – and yet, beneath that, something almost human.

She hears footsteps, like someone, or something, running towards her. She opens her eyes and realizes she can see past the tree – not well, but she can see the silhouette of what she thinks might be a person. A man. Hunched over, running on all four limbs. He sniffs the tree where she hides, and she would hold her breath if she still had lungs to fill.

Something about him, though. He feels so familiar. She knows, deep in her bones that lay cold and still beneath the earth, that she can trust him. She is safe. He will not hurt her.

She can barely see his eyes, but she knows this man. Somehow, she does. She summons her bravery and slips her hand from within the tree, presses it against his cheek, hovering so carefully, wanting more than anything to touch, to feel the warm skin against her palm.

"Allison," he says her name like a prayer.

"Scott," she whispers as she steps out from the tree, bringing her other hand up to cradle his head, "Scott, I'm here. I'm right here."

He can't see her. Can't hear her. Can't feel her.

"Allison," his voice breaks, and she can't feel the wetness on her fingers, but she can see the tears rolling down his face.

"Scott," she whispers helplessly. Fights back tears, until she remembers it doesn't matter anymore – the dead cannot weep.

* * *

She follows him home. She isn't sure why, but it feels right. If no one is coming, if there are no reapers or banshees to show her into the afterlife, then she has to find her own way. She feels drawn to Scott, and why was he at the Nemeton so soon after she woke? Did he somehow sense her presence?

She hopes he did, hopes he knows she's watching. She knows he can't actually see her, but sometimes, his eyes linger a few seconds too long, and she thinks maybe he knows, somehow, that she's there. Close enough to touch, and yet, not. She wants to hold his hand, walk together like they used to, when they were so in love and all she could see were the stars in his eyes. Pretend she doesn't know about werewolves, or Aunt Kate, or the Hale fire – any of it, just pretend none of it exists, so they can go back to being _Scott and Allison_, just the two of them.

Scott opens the front door, slams it behind him. Automatically, she reaches for the doorknob. Her fingers slip through, go beyond the knob to disappear into the door itself. She closes her eyes, because this is still so weird, and steps through the closed door with ease.

"I have to go, I'll call you back," Mrs. McCall is hanging up the phone, looking at Scott with wide, anxious eyes, "What happened?"

He shakes his head, stares at a patch of wall behind her head, "Nothing, just went out for a run."

His mother purses her lips, obviously skeptical, and with good reason. She hesitates, as though carefully considering her next words, before finally saying softly, "Chris says he's never seen you at the cemetery. Isaac too. Sweetheart –"

"She's not there," he snaps, then looks contrite at her raised eyebrows, "She didn't like cemeteries. She…she always said, she didn't like visiting her mom's grave, because it was too sad, and if her mom had a choice, she would be at home, in their library. She said…she said she felt her there, sometimes."

"And where do you feel her, Scott?" Mrs. McCall asks gently. His mouth twists in a pained, sorrowful smile.

"I feel her everywhere," he whispers.

"I'm here," she tells them helplessly, "I'm right here."

* * *

Then they're gone so fast that she thinks she might feel nauseous, if she still had a stomach. She looks around. It's her room. Or it was. But it still looks the same, like her father hasn't touched it since her death. Maybe he hasn't.

Her bed is made, though, and she knows she didn't do that. She walks around it. It feels too neat, too deliberate, for her father. There are small rumples in the comforter, though, as if someone had slept there, on top of everything. The window is cracked open. She leans her head out, and there are claw marks on the windowsill. Isaac.

When she thinks about it, it makes sense. Isaac is an orphan. He left Derek. (She's sure he would take him back, but Isaac is too scared to ask.) When she died, he had still been living with Scott. But maybe her death had upset the balance. Maybe Scott was too unstable for Isaac to feel safe there. He never liked much conflict.

She runs her fingers along the edge of the bed. She's getting better at this now, at judging where to put her hands so it looks like she could be touching, even if she can't feel it. She imagines herself like a soft, cool breeze, the air just barely disturbed by her spirit passing through.

It's almost painful, to be here, to be reminded of her life, so ordinary now. She touches the desk. Her physics homework is still strewn across, equations half-finished. Now she can't even hold a pen. She moves to the dresser, and that's her hair in the brush. _I was here, I was alive, that was me,_ she thinks.

There's a book, on the nightstand, next to her bed. _Othello._ She was on Act Three. The bookmark is still there, just a piece of red ribbon. She was reading it for English. There was a quiz on Friday.

Her economic test is stuffed in the drawer, she remembers. She didn't want her father to see the big red F written on the top of the page. She had been worried about econ, and Isaac, and the Nogitsune – and now, she's dead. Now, there is nothing.

What is she here for? Shouldn't she be with her mother? Maybe she didn't deserve to go to Heaven, maybe Heaven didn't exist, but if this is the afterlife, where is everyone else? What was it they always said about ghosts, that they had unfinished business? She was seventeen, of course she has unfinished business. There was – _is_ – still so much she wants to do with her life.

She wants to graduate. She wants to go to college. She wants to visit France, like her father promised they would one day. She wants to tell Derek that it's okay – she can't forget what happened to her mother, but she understands, and she doesn't blame him anymore. She wants to tell Isaac that he's a wonderful person, that he didn't deserve what his father did to him, that he should give Derek a second chance. She wants to tell Stiles it's not his fault, the Nogitsune could have chosen any one of them. She wants to tell Lydia she's the sister she never had, and she doesn't need a man to be amazing. She wants to tell her father that it's okay to be happy again, and just because her mother is gone, it doesn't mean he can never talk about her and smile one day. She wants to tell Jackson to stop being a coward and just come back already. She wants to tell Scott she still loves him, and she wants to try again.

She can't do any of those things now, because she's dead. She was only seventeen. She doesn't regret her last minutes, the decision to protect Isaac. She couldn't have known she would die, but if she had, she would have done it anyway. It was the final crux in her story. Some good could come out of her family, for once. Instead of killing an innocent, she saved one. Her mother might not have been proud, but she thinks she would have understood. Her mother had fought and died by her cause, and so had she – their causes were different, but her mother understood what it was to fight for something, to put your life on the line for someone else's.

"Why am I still here?" she asks the empty room.

It's not that she doesn't want to be. She does. More than anything, she wants to stay. She wants to see her friends all grow up and graduate, get married and have kids, do all the stupid things they've always done. She wants to watch over her father, make sure he's okay.

But she's dead. What can she do for them now? She's nothing but a useless spirit watching over them. She can't even touch them.

She can't bring herself to leave. She's not ready to see her father so soon after seeing Scott. She sits on the edge of her bed, thinks of Lydia sitting where she is now, telling her she had awful fashion sense. Eventually, Isaac comes in through the window, as she had suspected.

He walks around and sniffs the air as if to be sure the room has been undisturbed since he left. Then he lies down on her bed, buries his face in her pillow with a sigh. Curls into the fetal position.

Allison lies next to him, wraps one arm around his chest and rests her face against the back of his neck. Imagines that he can feel her steady breath (imagines she can still breathe). Tries to hold him tighter, pull him close enough that she can feel his warmth. She finally settles for wrapping around him with light touches like a cloak. Whispers, "it's okay, it's okay, I'm here," until his eyes close and his breathing evens out. Keeps murmuring in his ear until the sun comes up.

* * *

Ally A is back! Well, sort of.

I know it's a bit choppy, I promise it'll be better next chapter. I'm still working on my set-up / intro stuff.

I'm sure people are thinking "oh sure, Allison can teleport now, wtf." It's necessary for some things I have planned later, and why she teleported (is it really teleporting if you don't have a physical body?) will be explained later.

Please review and let me know what you think. Con crit is LOVE. Feel free to ask me any questions.


	2. Invisible

Disclaimer: I do not own Teen Wolf and I am making no profit from this writing.

* * *

Chapter 2: Invisible

Allison doesn't so much wake up as drift back to attention. She feels as if coming out of a trance when Isaac rolls out of her bed. The sun is only just starting to peek over the horizon. The alarm clock on her desk (does it still go off every morning at six?) reads 5:00 in bright LED lights.

"Isaac?" she mumbles, forgetting for a moment that he cannot hear her. He uses both hands to smooth the rumpled covers back into order, freezing for an instant when he passes through her stomach. He looks disconcerted, and she feels a brief flash of hope. He stares at his hand, then slowly turns to look at the pillow. He's not looking directly at her, though, and that tells her he can't see her. It still makes her heart skip a beat, deep in her coffin beneath the earth, when his fingers brush the pillow, just inches from her nose.

He shakes his head after a moment, as if banishing her memory. Then he's gone, slipping out the open window almost soundlessly. She rises, moves to the window to watch him go. She wonders where he's headed – and then it occurs to her that she could follow him. It would be easy. She's climbed down from her window before, but now she has no bones to break. She could just jump.

So she does. The ground races to meet her, and she has a moment of irrational fear – what if she was wrong? – before she sinks to the ground. Then she's running, and if she moves fast enough, she can almost imagine she feels the wind blowing her hair back. The same way it had when she was alive.

She's chasing him, and she's never moved so fast. When he runs into the woods and leaps to avoid a branch, she just sails through it. She laughs, free and open, because it's so like running with him in life, and yet, so not. She could never keep up with him, his werewolf abilities gave him too much of an advantage in speed. Now, she understands what they mean, when they say "running with wolves." She's moving so fast that it feels like she might be flying. And even though, in the back of her mind, she knows they've already run a mile, full speed, her lungs aren't burning, because she has no lungs. Her legs aren't cramping, she's not huffing for breath. Nothing stands between her and her goal. With Isaac by her side, looking utterly natural in the forest, she feels as if she could run forever.

It takes a few seconds to realize she's not in the woods anymore, and Isaac is gone. She stops just before she steps into an in-ground pool. She recognizes this place from Saturday nights spent watching _The Notebook_ and studying math, from late nights translating archaic Latin and whispering about kanimas. It's Lydia's yard, and she can see her friend on the other side of the pool, standing by the hedges in a tank top and shorts. It's a side of Lydia she rarely got to see in life – genuine and without reservations, no makeup or beautifully curled hair to hide behind. Her little dog Prada trots back to her, wagging his tail proudly. Allison feels a familiar gush of warmth at the tiny Papillon, remembers when she would put pink bows in his fur and make Lydia pose with him for pictures.

Lydia picks him up and hugs him tightly to her breast, whispering into his soft fur as the dog whimpers at his owner's distress. Allison can't make out what she's saying, but she can see the tears gathering in her eyes. Is she thinking of all she's lost – first the love of her life, now her best friend? Is she thinking of those days before they knew about the supernatural, back when werewolves were just a children's fairy tale?

Maybe Allison is projecting her own dark thoughts onto her friend. It's been weeks since her death, it's presumptuous to expect Lydia to overwhelmed with grief. Maybe she's had a fight with Aiden, or maybe Jackson has finally announced he won't be coming back.

Allison doesn't realize she's moved until Prada snarls. She stops immediately, looking at the dog in confusion. Lydia laughs slightly.

"What is it? Is it Mrs. Blake's cat again?" she whispers, pulling her face away slightly with a small, tired smile. Prada curls his lip and stares directly at Allison. She slowly takes a step back, and the dog goes off like someone's flipped a switch.

He lets out a ferocious bark, sounding far more vicious than his diminutive size might imply. Lydia jumps in surprise as he suddenly tries to lunge out of her arms. She clutches him more firmly to her chest with a shudder.

"Who's there?" she calls out. Allison wants to answer, but her friend can't hear her.

"I'll call the police!" she threatens, even as she starts backing towards the house. Once she's just outside the door, she spins and runs inside. Allison hears her slam the deadbolt into place behind her.

She goes to sit at the edge of the pool, kicking her feet lightly and imagining she can feel the water against her skin. She's still wearing the clothes she died in, so of course it's impossible, even if she could feel any kind of sensation, but if she looks away from her combat boots, stares at a certain spot in the water for long enough, she can almost pretend. So she sits, and thinks. It's the first time she's been alone since she woke up, and yet, she feels as if she's been alone the whole time, because no one can hear her. No one can see her.

Except Prada, it seems. It's strange. Back in the forest, the deer had stared straight at her, but she hadn't reacted, so Allison had thought it was just a coincidence. Prada obviously knew someone – or something – was there. Why? Could it be that the animals sensed her presence in a way their human counterparts could not? But if that was the case, why couldn't Isaac or Scott see her?

But, she realizes, they had, just not the way she wanted them to. Not as acutely as the animals seem to. They hadn't looked at her, hadn't been able to see her, but they had known, on some level, that she was there, hadn't they? The way Isaac had frozen when his hand passed through her stomach (she remembered old legends about how ghosts left a chill where they had been). The way Scott had found the tree where she hid and broken down in front of it. They hadn't known, couldn't have known, that she was there watching them, but on some level, perhaps subconsciously, they had felt her presence.

It gives her hope. Maybe, just maybe, there is still some good she can do.

* * *

When she next feels the now-familiar tug, the scenery changes to one she remembers well, if not fondly: Derek's loft. She wonders if Erica or Boyd ever came here after their death. Was Erica watching when the alpha pack came? Was Boyd here when they fought the Nogitsune? What had they thought? Had they been here the whole time, and she had never noticed?

If they were, they're not here anymore. She isn't sure how, but deep down, she knows she's all alone in this. There are no other ghosts haunting Derek's loft (not real ones, anyways). She wonders what brought her here – she may not hate him anymore, but there is no love lost between her and Derek – until she sees the figure at the window, too thin to be Derek.

It's Stiles, running his fingers along a crack in the glass. She thinks he must be remembering the fight here, when the Nogitsune was still controlling him and he had thrown Derek across the room. Taunted his father. Baited her father to shoot him.

She thinks he must remember it as well as she does, and wonders if anyone else remembers it so well. There had been such _hate_ in his eyes. She had been afraid of him. It seems ridiculous now, looking at the boy before her – small, weak, pale. He looks utterly human. She wants to wrap her arms around him and tell him it's okay, no one blames him, least of all her.

Stiles is Scott's best friend, and he's _Stiles._ She will never be able to reconcile the demon with the boy who fawned over Lydia for years, who _joked_ about werewolves, who saved her life more than once. If they had killed him, if they had been willing to sacrifice Stiles to get rid of the Nogtisune, she would still be alive. That knowledge isn't lost on her.

But would she want to live, if it meant someone else, someone _innocent_ in all of this, had to die? If she had known, when they first learned of the Nogitsune, that killing Stiles was the only way to save her own life…she doesn't think she would have done anything differently. Stiles was a victim too, and he was her friend. She can only imagine how Scott must be feeling.

Why is Stiles here, alone? Shouldn't he be home with his dad? She can practically feel the guilt radiating off him, has no one told him it's not his fault? Someone should be talking to him, reminding him that it was the demon, not him, and he's a victim, not a psychopathic killer. He shouldn't be alone in _Derek's loft_, of all places. Derek's martyrdom had probably soaked into the walls (and there were still bloodstains on the floor from the alpha pack, Allison knew because she had helped Scott figure out how to arrange the couch to hide them, when Derek finally admitted he couldn't get them out). It's possibly the most depressing place in the entirety of Beacon Hills, except for maybe Derek's actual house. Conclusion: Derek is depressing and surrounds himself in gloominess. Stiles is already projecting gloom and doom vibes, so he shouldn't be near Derek, and by extension, Derek's property. She isn't sure if it's better or worse that he's alone. The place is slightly less creepy when Derek's actually there (but significantly more creepy when Peter's there).

She assumed Stiles was alone, but after a few minutes, she hears a throat clearing behind her. She turns just in time to see him raise his hand, and then he _throws salt at her._

It _stings_, and she automatically jumps back, away from the contact. She panics, because it's the first sensation she's felt since she died, and is he actually trying to hurt her? How can he, she's a ghost? How is this hurting her? She thinks sharply of Scott, wildly, Scott would be furious with Derek if he tried to hurt her, he wouldn't, right?

As if summoned by her thoughts, Scott appears in front of her. She blinks. No, it's more accurate to say that she's appeared in front of Scott. They're in the vet clinic, in the treatment room. It's just Scott and a German Shepherd with a cast on his leg. The dog looks up at her warily and growls, and she thinks it's going to be just like with Lydia and Prada, but Scott shushes him.

"Shhh, it's okay, buddy," he soothes, scratching behind his ear. She remembers seeing him do the same thing the night she hit a dog with her car, reassuring the dog (and her) that everything would be okay. The dog quiets now, just as the other dog had then. She can understand, she had fallen asleep in Scott's arms before, just listening to his voice.

She reaches out to scratch the dog, remembering how he had encouraged her to pet the other dog so long ago. She isn't sure if the dog can feel her touch, but he seems to relax. He still watches her curiously, but he doesn't seem alarmed anymore. She's relieved, she only just escaped Derek and his salt (what was that all about?), and she wants to just stay here for a while with Scott.

She rests her other hand over Scott's, reveling at the way he pauses for just an instant before going back to petting the dog with a faint, tiny smile. She can't communicate with him the way she wants to, but for now, it's enough that she can give him this small comfort.

* * *

"Dude, did you just flick _salt_ at me?" Stiles asks incredulously, staring at Derek like he's lost his mind. The werewolf grunts.

"Sorry, I don't speak sourwolf," he rolls his eyes. Derek scowls back at him.

"I smelled something," he explains, like that actually makes sense. Stiles waits for him to go on.

"Okay, like what?" he prompts, when the other remains silent. Derek looks at the ground, looking slightly embarrassed. Interesting.

"I don't know. It smelled like ash and wolfsbane," he admits. Stiles raises an eyebrow.

"So you just figured you'd start throwing salt around?" he pauses, and then grins broadly, "Holy shit, you thought it was a ghost, didn't you?"

He's blushing now, much to the human's delight, and he crows, "You totally did! I can't believe it, the big bad werewolf is afraid of ghosts!"

"Shut up," he growls, but Stiles is absolutely counting this as a win.

* * *

Oooooh, Derek's onto her! Because he's my genius baby and if anyone (besides Deaton) would know _anything_ about ghosts, it would be him, Mr. she's-a-kitsune-idiot. But, at this point, he does not know who the ghost is. He can smell her, but he can't see her.

In case anyone is confused – yes, Aiden is dead, Allison just doesn't know about it. She didn't "wake up" until after his death, and no one's mentioned it in front of her yet. She knows the Nogitsune was defeated (let's just assume someone mentioned it at some point in front of her), she doesn't know details.

I don't even know how many times I messed up and switched past and present tense when I was writing this – if you see any mistakes I missed, please let me know. :) Toodles!


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